If you're worried about PvP, join Cyrene or Hashan. They arent as focused that way and have many other avenues to explore

I really dislike when players make this suggestion, because it sets the tone for newbies. Suddenly it sounds like all the others cities require you to PK, but they don’t.

Cyrene and Hashan as cities also have plenty of reason to engage in as much or more PK then Ashtan, Targ, Loosis, and Mdor. Their focus could easily shift to be more active in the city conflict arena; they just don’t have anyone to push them that way right now.

Another argument that comes up is that because this city has X fighters, you should go there if you want to learn to fight. However, there are tons of mid tier and high tier folks in every city that are willing to help others get into it.

@Aetreus, many people don’t suggest going cityless your first time playing. There are a lot of base and nuanced mechanical things that can be fairly well hidden, and having a city or house can be an excellent support net.

However, there are also a few well-known rogues who have made quite the story for their characters. It’s 100% a harder climb than joining a city/house, but if your character’s guiding principles are strong enough, I don’t see why you shouldn’t give it a try. Worst case scenario is you join a house or city later, after your character has had a chance to explore the world and make his or her own judgments.

Going without a city is deliberately excluding yourself from the factional component of a factional game. The vast majority of major story arcs, big world events, or everyday story development is going to take place in one of the factions. As well, cities are what helps set the tone and direction for how you interact with the game's world at large, and without one the game would feel very empty and directionless.

Honestly, I'm going to say it because I think nobody else has yet: @Aetreus, you and Kraetos are probably having difficulty meshing with cities because you came in trying to RP two God of War characters. It's very difficult for people to want to take that seriously, especially when it's so blatant and obvious. You would have a whole lot more success if you came into a city with your own character, and allowed your roleplay to evolve based on your experiences in the game and not a rigid character from a very well known video game franchise. Achaea's got a massive amount of lore and stories to draw from, and it's a great world to dive in to and lose yourself in. Give it a try!

Going without a city is deliberately excluding yourself from the factional component of a factional game. The vast majority of major story arcs, big world events, or everyday story development is going to take place in one of the factions. As well, cities are what helps set the tone and direction for how you interact with the game's world at large, and without one the game would feel very empty and directionless.

Honestly, I'm going to say it because I think nobody else has yet: @Aetreus, you and Kraetos are probably having difficulty meshing with cities because you came in trying to RP two God of War characters. It's very difficult for people to want to take that seriously, especially when it's so blatant and obvious. You would have a whole lot more success if you came into a city with your own character, and allowed your roleplay to evolve based on your experiences in the game and not a rigid character from a very well known video game franchise. Achaea's got a massive amount of lore and stories to draw from, and it's a great world to dive in to and lose yourself in. Give it a try!

I knew I recognized those names from somewhere!

Trying to RP as a well-known character from a franchise never works. Achaea has a few familiar names kicking around, especially in its Pantheon and NPCs, but that tends to be about where the similarities to real-life media end. I would suggest treating it more like a D&D campaign. Give your character a name, a general backstory (but don't get too attached to it, because it is likely you will want to change it once you learn more about the game), and see where things go.

My avatar is an image created by this very talented gentleman, of whose work I am extremely jealous. It was not originally a picture of Amunet, but it certainly looks a great deal like how I envision her!

Going without a city is deliberately excluding yourself from the factional component of a factional game. The vast majority of major story arcs, big world events, or everyday story development is going to take place in one of the factions. As well, cities are what helps set the tone and direction for how you interact with the game's world at large, and without one the game would feel very empty and directionless.

Honestly, I'm going to say it because I think nobody else has yet: @Aetreus, you and Kraetos are probably having difficulty meshing with cities because you came in trying to RP two God of War characters. It's very difficult for people to want to take that seriously, especially when it's so blatant and obvious. You would have a whole lot more success if you came into a city with your own character, and allowed your roleplay to evolve based on your experiences in the game and not a rigid character from a very well known video game franchise. Achaea's got a massive amount of lore and stories to draw from, and it's a great world to dive in to and lose yourself in. Give it a try!

I'd like to add that if you're intent on roleplaying someone who is powerful, which both those characters are, make sure there's some amount of build-up. I don't know you so I have no idea how you roleplay and this might not even be relevant, but power in this game absolutely does not come from leveling up. Levels are a very small part of being powerful, with the majority of power coming from knowing how to play your class well, so if you act tough and can't back it up, people will just dismiss you. There's nothing wrong with being a starry-eyed newcomer who admits they don't know things. Actually those are a prized and beloved commodity in my eyes.

To answer the original question though, the main difficulty in being cityless will absolutely be that most people will associate mainly with their own citymates because there's an unspoken connection there. The most un-fun consequence of this is that Achaea is a game that absolutely becomes better the more you learn about it, and not being able to ask questions to a group of helpful people means you'll miss out on a lot of potential enjoyment. Some people might teach a rogue how to fight or where to hunt, but most of the best teachers are in cities doing their jobs and will struggle to afford you a great deal of time as a rogue. Unless you're extremely outgoing and make friends easily, being a rogue will make the world feel smaller than it really is.

One other minor thing: Most (but not all) of the successful rogues in Achaea have been citizens in various cities for various amounts of years, first. It helped them establish at least a base of understanding for the game, their characters having some (or a lot, in Skye's case) people they know, etc. While it's not in the rules or anything, I would highly encourage any new character (even an alt, though most especially someone new to Achaea) to at least start out in a city to get your foot in the door, figure out how you want the character to be/do, and establish some connections.

In my experience, characters transplanted from other settings do poorly in Achaea because most settings in fiction use an ethical frame of reference more-or-less analogous to the time and place the work was created. For most of us this means that characters near and dear to us from existing fiction that we might choose to play as also tend to be created within our lives, and tend to act and think like people you might expect to run in to on the street (regardless of the genre the character was lifted from). The ideologies propped up by the factional cities in Achaea are pretty alien and outright bonkers from that perspective. It's a world where not only are "Good" and "Evil" tangible enough to be more-or-less objectively quantified, but also a world where lighting people on fire is very likely to net you "Good guy" points. It's a world in which gym-bros are inherently bad people, and strive to become even worse people in order to gain the favour of the God of Gains (and also Bad Stuff, but mostly Gains). Everything about the various societal standards in Achaea is head-spinning when you try and bring in outside context.

Going without a city is deliberately excluding yourself from the factional component of a factional game. The vast majority of major story arcs, big world events, or everyday story development is going to take place in one of the factions. As well, cities are what helps set the tone and direction for how you interact with the game's world at large, and without one the game would feel very empty and directionless.

Honestly, I'm going to say it because I think nobody else has yet: @Aetreus, you and Kraetos are probably having difficulty meshing with cities because you came in trying to RP two God of War characters. It's very difficult for people to want to take that seriously, especially when it's so blatant and obvious. You would have a whole lot more success if you came into a city with your own character, and allowed your roleplay to evolve based on your experiences in the game and not a rigid character from a very well known video game franchise. Achaea's got a massive amount of lore and stories to draw from, and it's a great world to dive in to and lose yourself in. Give it a try!

I'd like to add that if you're intent on roleplaying someone who is powerful, which both those characters are, make sure there's some amount of build-up. I don't know you so I have no idea how you roleplay and this might not even be relevant, but power in this game absolutely does not come from leveling up. Levels are a very small part of being powerful, with the majority of power coming from knowing how to play your class well, so if you act tough and can't back it up, people will just dismiss you. There's nothing wrong with being a starry-eyed newcomer who admits they don't know things. Actually those are a prized and beloved commodity in my eyes.

To answer the original question though, the main difficulty in being cityless will absolutely be that most people will associate mainly with their own citymates because there's an unspoken connection there. The most un-fun consequence of this is that Achaea is a game that absolutely becomes better the more you learn about it, and not being able to ask questions to a group of helpful people means you'll miss out on a lot of potential enjoyment. Some people might teach a rogue how to fight or where to hunt, but most of the best teachers are in cities doing their jobs and will struggle to afford you a great deal of time as a rogue. Unless you're extremely outgoing and make friends easily, being a rogue will make the world feel smaller than it really is.

Forgive me for not replying earlier. I understand that my choice to play as Kratos is frowned upon by some of you here, if not all of you. However, allow me to explain:1. I chose Kratos as more of a template than an actual character. If any of you have had the opportunity to roleplay with Kraetos, then you will see that he is only a light-hearted warrior in search of power and glory. For those who are unfamiliar with the God of War series, Kratos is not such. I have done what I can to make Kraetos my own, and not following the "rigid" form of Kratos.2. Kraetos is -not- trying to RP Kratos. Kraetos is my own character, who I have modeled after the God of War. If I am not mistaken, there is quite a large difference. I picked and chose traits from Kratos to use in my character as a frame for an original character. Just as someone would take the chivalrous honor of Sir Lancelot and put it into another character, I have done so with Kraetos.3. I hate making lists. Sorry to drag it out.4. Penwize, my friend, I am not trying to hide the fact that I modeled my character off of Kratos. In fact, I am proud that I have done so. I've played a few MUDs before, and have made plenty of original characters. This time, I am doing something a bit different. It may be different, but I'm going with it.5. Final note, quick and to the point: Going cityless is risky and not advised unless you are very well prepared, and have strong ties with people inside cities. Kraetos has been doing it for a good bit now. There is no problem getting gold, but replacing armor and weapons is difficult. However, there are many kind people who are willing to help a stranger for a pretty penny. Some even do it for a few comms.

I doubt anyone is actually frowning considering that most of the people posting may have picked their name from something fictional or the like, hell I just used my school nickname like an asshole. It's more that any pre-baked character role is going to have to go through the RP-heavyMUD/Achaea mangler and if I had any piece of advice worth giving (which I assure you, is probably actually the only piece of advice I have that's worth anything at all) is that seeing your "picked and chosen traits" as more a starting point to work off and then let the characters and stories you end up involved in bend that concept it'll end up paying dividends that no amount of self-crafting pre-concepts will. Its great you have ideas and a conviction to play something you like, if you are willing to see what happens when you drive that concept against the brick wall of RP reality I promise with utmost sincerity you will enjoy the end result even if it does feel a bit like a car crash to your original concept, it'll feel good though, trust me.

I say this because I actually had a solid concept for what Finchy was when I started. I'd failed about four or five times to get into Achaea and decided the trick would be to actually have a proper character with some basic notes so I could stop feeling like I was just using msn messenger to ask people how to kill things and how to get ye flask. Absolutely nobody would believe its real, because what we ended up with is completely unrelated. The character got bent around his guild, his city, influential characters, big events! Even more basic things like interacting with quests, or being stupidly lucky at gambling lessons just before they stopped letting us do that thank god. Then for some reason it went nautical, vermin ended up mixed in for what I remember partly as a fever dream and having leveled to 40-50 on nothing but rats, and the end result is so out of my original frame of reference (and own experiences at times) I actually have to spend most of my time thinking about what the hell Finchy would do rather than me, it is a good pain.

The advice about power is completely accurate, but for the record some of the most "powerful" characters in Achaea, some of the people who have left the greatest mark in indelible ink in the game over the years were complete garbage at combat* so if it turns out you can't master the incredibly in-depth combat system you can your character down a different route. Unfortunately, this will still require having as much tangible balls as opposed to just faking it, and probably take twice as long.

I doubt anyone is actually frowning considering that most of the people posting may have picked their name from something fictional or the like, hell I just used my school nickname like an asshole. It's more that any pre-baked character role is going to have to go through the RP-heavyMUD/Achaea mangler and if I had any piece of advice worth giving (which I assure you, is probably actually the only piece of advice I have that's worth anything at all) is that seeing your "picked and chosen traits" as more a starting point to work off and then let the characters and stories you end up involved in bend that concept it'll end up paying dividends that no amount of self-crafting pre-concepts will. Its great you have ideas and a conviction to play something you like, if you are willing to see what happens when you drive that concept against the brick wall of RP reality I promise with utmost sincerity you will enjoy the end result even if it does feel a bit like a car crash to your original concept, it'll feel good though, trust me.

I say this because I actually had a solid concept for what Finchy was when I started. I'd failed about four or five times to get into Achaea and decided the trick would be to actually have a proper character with some basic notes so I could stop feeling like I was just using msn messenger to ask people how to kill things and how to get ye flask. Absolutely nobody would believe its real, because what we ended up with is completely unrelated. The character got bent around his guild, his city, influential characters, big events! Even more basic things like interacting with quests, or being stupidly lucky at gambling lessons just before they stopped letting us do that thank god. Then for some reason it went nautical, vermin ended up mixed in for what I remember partly as a fever dream and having leveled to 40-50 on nothing but rats, and the end result is so out of my original frame of reference (and own experiences at times) I actually have to spend most of my time thinking about what the hell Finchy would do rather than me, it is a good pain.

The advice about power is completely accurate, but for the record some of the most "powerful" characters in Achaea, some of the people who have left the greatest mark in indelible ink in the game over the years were complete garbage at combat* so if it turns out you can't master the incredibly in-depth combat system you can your character down a different route. Unfortunately, this will still require having as much tangible balls as opposed to just faking it, and probably take twice as long.

*I am just complete garbage, this works too.

I am totally enjoying the game, and as a veteran of Aetolia I enjoy the change of pace. Same amount of roleplay, stronger character, (less drama) and possible godhood. And Finchy, my car crash is very fun this time around. Aetolia was/is.... lord have mercy on poor Iatan. Iatan was my first and biggest failure/success. I do have to say, he's one of the biggest bards in that MUD. Only good thing about him. I enjoy having Kraetos, nothing is better than a tanky yet fast Runewarden. And I haven't even gotten that far into leveling him up. I'm still getting used to having a falcon, and a different combat system, but since I played Aetolia, I think I have a leg up on some people.

Names are one thing, but when you can draw clear parallels between an Achaea character's RP and/or description and an outside character, it's really jarring immersion-wise. So I wouldn't advise using Kratos, or any other character, as an obvious template.

________________________The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."

What problem is there with drawing parallels to another character? Kratos would fit in well in Achaea. And I haven't had any problems with the character, RPing with him is easy and free flowing. Could you explain what you mean by "jarring immersion-wise"? It's not like I'm using a futuristic character or anything. Blades. Magic. Gods and monsters. God of War -and- Achaea.

Because it's something that already exists outside Achaea. Kratos could have been an Achaean character, possibly... but isn't. It makes the person dealing with you reference a source material that is not Achaean, pulling their mind out of the game.

________________________The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."

Yeahhh, every bit of your RP that I've seen so far has pretty much been you just playing Kraetos as if it's God of War Kratos. Even down to calling Aetreus "Boy" regularly. There's a massive difference between using a character archetype and using a character. You're doing the latter, and it's coloured people's approach to your character in game.

It probably doesn't help that the Kratos character is a powerful man with a strong will and a belligerent opposition to authority. Trying to roleplay that kind of character when you haven't built up any kind of recognizable strength (through combat, politicking, or otherwise) is uh ... difficult. It doesn't really lend itself well to the whole learning and growing bit most newbies are supposed to do.